The main reason this chair has found a home in the Museum of Making is that it is probably the very last of its type anywhere in the world and it was made in Derby.

It has survived as it found a second use when all the others like it were no longer needed. It is said to have been rescued from the scrap heap by the Managing Director of a local engineering company. It adorned their office for many years and was later donated to Derby Museum.

It is the chair's original purpose that makes it so special, and that was in a railway carriage. Not just an ordinary railway carriage, but something which hasn't been seen on Britain's railways for several generations — a “Family Saloon”.

In Midland Railway days (that is before 1923), if you had the money, it was possible to have an entire carriage for your whole family's private use. As well as being rather well appointed with posh leather seats like this one (it would have looked a LOT better then!), there was even a separate compartment in the carriage for your servants!

But what's its secret?

Look carefully at its legs.

You will see that it has beautiful and ornately carved legs. Well, at least three of them are. But what about the fourth, at the back. What's this? A bodged repair at some time in the chair's history?

Now you come to look, do you see how one side of the chair has the lovely leather upholstery on the outside (it used to be lovely, anyway), while on the other side it's just plain? Why would this be?

Have a look at this diagram from the Midland Railway Study Centre's collection. You can click or tap it to open a bigger version that you'll be able to look at more closely...

Have you spotted the seat that's circled in this enlargement...?

In this position in the carriage, the side of the chair to the occupant's left would be up against the side of the carriage and completely hidden from view. The same applies to the leg of the chair to the occupant's rear-left as it would also be hidden by the carriage walls. The designers of the carriage realised this and made sure that no unnecessary time (or perhaps more importantly, money!) was wasted on making something ornate that no-one would ever see.

Apart from you!

Ten carriages of this type were built at the Midland Railway's carriage & wagon works on Litchurch Lane, Derby, all of them in 1909. They were all sent to the scrap yard a long time ago when having your very own carriage was no longer something the railway companies offered — regardless of how rich you were.

Unfortunately we don't have a photograph of our chair in its original setting, however this photograph was taken inside a Family Saloon looking in the other direction and shows what it would have looked like in all its original glory.

We hope you can see now what makes our tatty old armchair a true survivor of a bygone age and understand how privileged we are to give it a home in the Museum of Making.